Problematic project work in a first year course - sustainability for civil/infrastructure and environmental engineers

In 2004, the School of Civil & Chemical Engineering at RMIT introduced a new program in civil and infrastructure engineering (1,2). This renewed program moved away from a traditional view of civil engineering based around design of new structures towards a whole of life view of infrastructure and the concomitant design challenges. In this new program, stu- dents do project work in each semester in an Engineering Practice course (subject). This paper reports the challenges of introducing concepts of sustainability, design, groupwork, report writing, logbooks, seminars, etc within a project based approach in first year during 2004 and 2005 in one of those courses, Environmental Principles for Sustainable Design. Lessons learned so far and intended changes for the second semester of 2005 are described. We need to include the environmental engineers in the abstract somehow… Overview Project-based courses, particularly in first year, are very demanding for both the students and for the teaching team. In our experience, many students are initially very dependent on the teaching team for detailed definition of what is required in the tasks, with some focusing only on work that has marks attached. Some students have more focus on the tutorials than the le c- tures (on sustainability), and many have trouble 'breaking through' the common view that economics (alone) is what drives decisions in engineering. In 2004 semester 2, students struggled with applying the practices that were introduced in first semester to the project, as well as connecting material from other sources into their project work. Of particular concern was the inability, or unwillingness or lack of recognition of the need to: • Use a systematic problem solving or engineering design process in the project • Use the material of the lecture series • Use previously taught report writing skills • Work in teams This paper describes our struggles with these issues, including progress made and plans for the future.